RETAIL ENVIRONMENT
Where the never seen becomes the Everseen
‘What the eyes cannot see, the mind does not know and it doesn’t exist’ was the quote from English writer D.H. Lawrence, author of the controversial Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Today we will cover where the “never seen” becomes the Everseen.
The concept of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ didn’t play out well for those who tried to ban Lawrence’s infamous opus as it sold in its millions after the obscenity case found in the deceased author’s favour in the 1960s.
In literature as in life, we can’t ignore the unignorable which is why businesses are legally bound to principles of transparency and integrity into their daily operations. Shining a light on dishonesty is case in point. No retail business likes to admit that their vetting processes are not up to speed so internal thieves often leave or are dismissed, without prosecution, only to resurface at another store without a criminal record.
Much internal fraud also goes undetected because it is often low level and over a long period of time so it remains below the radar of data mining technology resulting in thousands of pounds worth of stock or cash being taken little and often.
New Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is however successfully plugging that gap where the human eye cannot see. One technology company, Everseen, has made its business-critical objective to ‘See the Unseen’ through computer and camera AI deep-learning and process shaping to teach the machines to map correct procedures and report exceptions.
These exceptions provide the prompt for the technology to gently prompt the non-compliant member of the team that the process has been breached.
This nudge technology uses language such as: “I don’t think that worked, let’s try scanning it again” which has worked to great effect with self-checkout breaches in the US supermarket sector where it has helped reduce ‘assistant intervention’ from 20 per cent to just 2 per cent, also enabling a better customer journey.
The technology is also effective in identifying collusion at EPOS systems, the so-called ‘sweethearting’ where the dishonest assistant is not scanning every item through for the benefit of the customer who often turns out to be a relative or criminal associate.
“Nudge technology works in terms of reducing bad actors in the business, but also from a day-to-day customer experience journey during COVID where it reduces assistant interventions and therefore reduces human contact,” said Alex Siskos, chief growth officer for Everseen in the US, where 60 per cent of the supermarket sector is using the technology.
“The technology is being deployed throughout the retail supply chain including back of stores and at distribution centres, not just to identify fraud but to ensure process compliance and maintain visibility of stock file accuracy.
“Item-level inventory accuracy is the holy grail for retail businesses - the missing link meaning that businesses don’t have the visibility of their leakage or shrinkage,” he added.
Huw Lloyd, chief strategy officer at Everseen pointed out that “interventions driven by visual AI technology, which automatically alerts the relevant systems or people when processes are not followed, are not necessarily about bad actors. It’s about compliance with procedures in busy environments, where staff are trying to do a million different things.
“This is where automation works - and it does not profile individuals, but simply highlights an anomaly in the process in a way that is gentle and reduces the possibility of conflict.
“In self-scan almost 100 per cent of the customers will re-scan an item once nudged,” added Huw.
Seeing the unseen means that both malicious and non-malicious process breaches come to light quickly and can be corrected without drama or dismissal.
